Category: Legal Ethics

Ethical Issues “On the Side” Employment Raises Read More

By Charles Berwanger

The all-important Rules of Professional Conduct are intended to guide our lives as attorneys, and in some instances our personal lives, and with this new year it behooves all of us to re-familiarize ourselves with the Rules. The purposes of the Rules are to “protect the public, the courts, and the legal profession, protect the integrity of the legal system; and promote the administration of justice and confidence in the legal profession.” Rule 1.10. It continues that “the Rules of Professional Conduct are intended to establish the standards for lawyers for purposes of discipline….Therefore, failure to comply with an obligation or prohibition imposed by Rule is a basis for invoking the disciplinary process.” Read More

The State Bar Acts to Impose on Attorneys Guidance for the Use of Generative AI and Future Continuing Education Requirements Regarding Technology in the Practice of Law

By Charles Berwanger

A December 6, 2023 New York Times’ edition’s first page’s headline announced “Nations Losing Race to Control Dangers of A. I.” The article continues with an internal headline: “Losing The Race to Control A. I.’s Perils – Alarmed by the power of artificial intelligence, Europe, the United States and others are trying to respond – but the technology is evolving more rapidly than their policies.” The article explains that “‘no one, not even the creators of these systems, know what they will be able to do,’ said Matt Clifford, an adviser to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain, who presided over an A. I. Safety Summit last month with 28 countries. ‘The urgency comes from there being a real question of whether governments are equipped to deal with and mitigate the risks.’ Read More

By Charles Berwanger

Practice law long enough and it will happen to you. You’ll learn, after the fact, that a witness on whom you were counting lied at a deposition. With trial looming, what do you do? Read More

By Anne Rudolph

Lana Lawyer has a plaintiff’s personal injury practice. She does not maintain an internet web site and does not otherwise engage in advertising. However, her e-mail address is published on the State Bar of California membership records website accessible to the public.  Read More

By Eric Deitz

A recent ABA ethics opinion addresses the demands that arise when preparing a client to testify and during their testimony. The ABA issued Formal Opinion 508 on August 5, 2023. Read More

By Shelly Skinner

Nowadays, it’s hard for a lawyer to ignore the ubiquity of social media and its potential to impact clients’ cases. Some jurisdictions have even said that a lawyer’s duty of competence includes competence with social media.[1] Read More

By David C. Carr

Once upon a time in the 19th Century, a man named David Dudley Field had some time on his hands. As a lawyer, this man was naturally inclined to write a code, a popular activity at the time. Large parts of this Code, the Field Code, became the law in a few states, including California, which had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Field’s brother, Stephen Field, was the fifth justice of the California Supreme Court. Read More

By Deborah Wolfe

One of the many facets of serving on the SDCBA’s Legal Ethics Committee (“LEC”) (in addition to penning articles for “Ethics in Brief “and “For the Record”) includes providing MCLE seminars for other lawyers focusing on legal ethics requirements. I frequently observe on such occasions the panicked looks on attendees’ faces when something I’ve said makes them fearful about possibly having missed a conflict of interest situation, or providing a client with appropriate disclosures within ethical boundaries. The purpose of the seminars is not to scare practitioners into compliance, but merely to remind them of the high standards lawyers are expected to meet. Lawyers’ ethics require us to put our clients’ interests ahead of our own; no other profession requires such an extreme level of duty to one’s clients. To the point, Business & Professions Code section 6068(e) requires lawyers to maintain the confidences of our clients at “every peril” to ourselves. I have always interpreted this section to mean that even faced with a loaded gun, I should take a bullet rather than betray any client confidence or secret. Despite its antiquated language, subsequent case law and State Bar decisions have held this section to convey that in addition to confidences and secrets, it requires lawyers to maintain the highest level of fiduciary duty and undivided loyalty to their clients. Read More

By Edward J. McIntyre

One would have to have been living on another planet not to recognize that generative AI is upon us —and all the rage. Whether ChatGPT, Bing A.I., Bard or some other platform, it’s hard to miss the proliferation of information — and misinformation — about large-learning-model platforms. They’ll either miraculously transform the way we work, recreate, communicate — or will destroy it. Rest assured, there’s only more to come. Read More